More than 400 manuscripts of the Sachsenspiegel (Mirror of the Saxons) survive, attesting to the wide dissemination and influence on the whole of Europe of this first law book in German. The most beautiful copies are the four illuminated manuscripts, all produced between 1295 and 1371, and now held in Heidelberg, Oldenburg, Dresden, and Wolfenbüttel. The most artistically valuable of these documents is the Dresden manuscript, preserved in the Saxon State and University Library. Its 924 image sequences on 92 pages are the most extensive of those in the four ...

Äldre Västgötalagen (Old Västergötland law) is the oldest legal text written in Old Swedish in Latin script and the oldest of Sweden’s medieval provincial laws. The law was formulated around 1220 and was used in Västergötland in western Sweden. This manuscript fragment dates to about 1240. It contains the oldest record of the law and, along with another manuscript in the holdings of the National Library of Sweden dating from the early 1290s, is the only source for the law. The two leaves come from the same manuscript and ...

Äldre Västgötalagen (Old Västergötland law) is the oldest legal text written in Old Swedish in Latin script and the oldest of Sweden’s medieval provincial laws. The law was formulated around 1220 and was used in Västergötland in western Sweden. Manuscript B 59 in the National Library of Sweden is the only complete copy of the law and is Sweden’s oldest book. The manuscript is a composite of 77 leaves, consisting of three parts bound together. It was written mainly by four scribes and dates to the beginning of ...

Constitvciones de la provincia de Sant Antonio de los Charcas hechas y recebidas en el capitulo prouincial celebrado en el Conuento de San Francisco dela Ciudad dela Paz(Constitutions of the province of San Antonio de los Charcas issued and received in the Provincial Chapter celebrated in the Convent of Saint Francis of the city of La Paz) was published in Lima, Peru, in 1616. San Antonio de los Charcaswas a province of the Viceroyalty of Peru, located in what is now Bolivia. The provincial capital was La Paz ...

Constitvciones de esta provincia de los Doze Apostoles del Perv(Constitutions of this province of the Twelve Apostles of Peru) was published in Lima, Peru, in 1607. The first printing press in South America was established in Lima by Antonio Ricardo (circa 1540−1606), an Italian who had worked for a time as a printer with the Jesuits in Mexico City. This book is part of a collection of 39 first editions in the National Library of Peru, produced at the press between 1584 and 1619. The collection was inscribed ...

Constitvciones dela provincia delos Doze Apostoles del Pirv (Constitutions of the province of the Twelve Apostles of Peru) was published in Lima, Peru, in 1617. The first printing press in South America was established in Lima by Antonio Ricardo (circa 1540−1606), an Italian who had worked for a time as a printer with the Jesuits in Mexico City. This book is part of a collection of 39 first editions in the National Library of Peru, produced at the press between 1584 and 1619. The collection was inscribed on the ...

At the height of its power in the 15th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ruled over the territory of present-day Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine, and parts of Estonia, Moldova, Poland, and Russia. In the Union of Lublin of 1569, the Grand Duchy and the Kingdom of Poland merged to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The commonwealth had a highly developed legal and administrative system, based on local land courts that decided civil cases involving the gentry and castle courts that dealt with other local matters, including criminal cases. Courts ...

In December 1838, delegates from the Territory of Florida met in the town of Saint Joseph to adopt a constitution, a necessary step toward becoming a state. It was not until March 3, 1845, however, that both houses of the United States Congress approved “An Act For The Admission of the States of Iowa and Florida Into The Union.” Florida was to be admitted to the union as a slave state and Iowa as a free state, thereby preserving the delicate political balance within the U.S. Senate between free ...

The Lex Baiuvariorum (Bavarian law) is the oldest surviving Latin document of any extent composed in Bavaria and the most important source for the early history of Bavaria. Containing the text of the first Bavarian statute book, it reflects, besides the history of the law, the economic, social, and cultural history of Bavaria under Agilolfingian rule in the sixth–eighth centuries. It focuses on criminal law, prescribing fiscal penalties for various infringements, and also deals with constitutional, civil, and procedural law. The preface reveals the high sources from which the ...